


Angels in the Architecture

by Cuda (Scylla)



Category: Fast and the Furious Series, Supernatural, Torchwood
Genre: Car Chases, Crossover Pairings, Crossovers & Fandom Fusions, Fix-It of Sorts, Harkstiel, M/M, SuperWood
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-24
Updated: 2015-12-24
Packaged: 2018-05-09 01:35:04
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,863
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5520491
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Scylla/pseuds/Cuda
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Jack and Castiel have a date to keep with some relatively new friends. When your existence can be measured in eons, really, <i>any</i> friend is new. It's nearly Christmas, and they're here for the party, complete with a surprise gift.</p><p>Kind of.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Angels in the Architecture

**Author's Note:**

> This story is better with music. [This playlist,](http://8tracks.com/jazzforthecaptain/angels-in-the-architecture) specifically.

Sequins and gold chains, feathers, red leather; puffs of perfume, warm bodies, beer and exhaust. People swirled through rows of exotic cars like tropical fish around a reef. In just two hours, half a dozen people turned an empty lot beneath an overpass into a riot of music and color. Jack could appreciate that sort of power - not through money or fear, but a sense of belonging and hope.

Normally he'd be inclined to a little suspicion. And okay, he wasn't just _inclined_ tonight, he _was_. Very. But his own personal beacon of goodwill had the wheel - metaphorically and otherwise. Around the holidays, some of the old world-weariness seemed to fall away from Castiel. Humans weren't any better to each other than any other time of the year, nobody was kidding themselves here. Maybe the good vibes were easier for one wartorn angel to absorb. Maybe he was deluding himself - Castiel could do that to an impressive degree.

Jack mentally shook himself, tossing his coat into the back as he conceded to the intense heat at last. If it was a delusion, it was Jack's delusion by choice - and he'd chase after it just for this scrap of happiness. Castiel loved humanity with an intensity that even Jack couldn't match. But in December, he felt like maybe, for a month, he could.

Castiel turned their [International Scout](http://www.infinitegarage.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/04/International-Scout.png) into the lot, the brilliant paint job flashing oilslick colors under the streetlamps. The crowd milled across the beams of their headlights, clearing a space in lazy waves as the Scout nosed its way between the crush of bodies. Faces turned towards them, eyeing them with mistrust. They weren't new, but they weren't familiar, either.

If Castiel could be flashing, he would be too, drinking in the scenery with an almost vibrating excitement. Something unwound in him, in the years since Sam and Dean's passing. Like maybe he was trying to fill _three_ lives with happiness. Castiel said he took a few minutes each morning to remind himself of what they'd spent their lives fighting for. The people, the good, the spots of light in the dark. Jack believed him - believed he'd do it right up to the heat death of the universe. Or until the Winchesters showed up again.

Jack wouldn't count that out. Like bad pennies, those two.

They parked the Scout and Jack leaped out, adjusting his collar when he hit the pavement, still uncomfortable with the shapelessness of the fabric. Starched and buttoned down was practically a fetish for him, and this was anything but. He liked to be conspicuous and unique, but Rio - Dom and Brian's Rio - was a different animal - a place where credibility was _earned_ , and usually not by people who looked and dressed like Captain Jack Harkness. By the third trip down, he'd reluctantly emulated the style of the realm. The soft silk print shirt and white tank top was certainly cooler, if strange. He felt like a new person. Not a completely new person, just as if the change of clothes unearthed a new slice of himself - someone he wasn't quite as familiar with.

The belt though - and its saucer sized enameled buckle - he could _work with._ If only for the way it kept drawing Castiel's eyes - everyone's eyes, really - right down to his crotch.

Castiel still refused to have any but the most necessary of tattoos, but asked for a pair of henna wings that morning as they passed a body art shop. They covered most of his back, each feather meticulously outlined in rich brown. The tight white shirt he wore was thin, burned through, and showed them like a print. He looked touchable, _hot,_ if not a bit like the creature Jack first encountered in the States a decade ago. The human and the inhuman blended together in a cocktail that Jack found luscious and rare.

They made their way through the crowd together in no particular hurry to find their targets, happy to just be a part of the festival, attracting less attention without their monster vehicle. Percussion rippled across the lot like heat lightning, the thunder of heavy bass behind it. Voices chanted in Portuguese, in Spanish, even in Korean and Japanese. Athletic young women and men swayed around them with a joy that just seemed to blossom as the night went on. Jack admired them. Caught Castiel doing the same. Their eyes met, and they grinned. Jack would happily score a repeat invitation to a Christmas Day festival like _this_.

"Suppose we should find out where they're holding court," he said, lips almost against Castiel's ear to be heard over the music.

Castiel pressed his shoulder into Jack's chest, looking at him with the bluest bedroom eyes this side of the southern hemisphere. Never one to resist temptation (unless resisting looked like more fun), Jack caught the back of Castiel's neck and towed him into a kiss.

"Figured you'd get lost," Dominic Toretto interrupted, a smile in his low voice. Jack took his time pulling away, not quite willing to turn away from Castiel even after the kiss ended, or pass up the chance to put on a show for Dom.

He was flanked by Brian O'Conner, whose grin might actually sparkle in the right light. "Never a good idea to lose focus before a race, boys."

Dom crossed his arms. "Could be a distraction," he said, tipping his head.

Brian looked Castiel up and down, blue eyes frank and interested. "It's working," he replied, took a sip of his beer and offered it out. Castiel took it with a similar glimmer of interest and chugged it, eyeballing Brian the whole time. Jack didn't bother to hide a smirk.

Dom's chuckle was almost subterranean, an amused growl rising up out of him like heat off the pavement. "You've got a hard-on for trouble, O'Conner." His eyes shifted to Jack, and he uncrossed his arms to offer his hand. Jack took it with a fond squeeze. His friendship with Dom and Brian was one of the most entertaining ones he'd ever had here on Earth, and certainly led him into a share of trouble. A chance encounter years ago tossed them together. By the time they'd helped Jack catch a car-thieving alien (and reclaimed the Shelby Mustang she'd heisted), indelible impressions had been made. Dom was gravity, Brian was magnetism, and the two of them together made an irresistible force of nature. Furthermore, the existence of aliens didn't swerve them. Not much could surprise a man who'd been chased by a tank down a Central American highway, or went skydiving in a Nissan to save an international hacker from a superspy.

Those were the kinds of things Jack wanted to see on a resume when it hit _his_ desk. Too bad neither of these boys were interested in anything more than adventure and an occasional tandem tumble. They were a unit. Indivisible as the Winchesters, fused and tempered by a lifetime of deep joys and deeper loss.

"So what's this I hear about a challenge?" Dom asked Jack.

Unlike the Winchesters, they had a healthier outlet for their trauma. They drove fast. They made things that blew records and speed traps and confounded law enforcement on a global level. Jack wished he could introduce them to Owen, just to watch the pissing match over the driver's seat.

"Oh, we've got one for you," Jack chuckled, "follow me." He peeled Castiel off of Brian with an effort, and the two of them led the way back to the Scout.

At the sight of it, Dom and Brian's eyebrows went up in nearly identical skepticism. The Scout was massive, heavy and designed for a variety of terrain. It had a multitude of functions, like a Swiss Army Knife on wheels. Speed; however, wasn't one of those functions.

"Well," Brian shrugged, gesturing at the paint with the neck of his beer, "it's pretty."

Castiel put a hand on the fender, clearly unimpressed with Brian's opinion.

"It's _very_ pretty," Brian amended, holding up both hands, and Dom laughed.

"Are you taking this off-road? Because if you're not, you're gonna get smoked." A slow grin spread from one corner of Dom's mouth to the other, "You're still gonna get smoked, either way."

Jack rolled his shoulders, starting to like the way the silk moved on his skin. "Shouldn't be a problem for you to follow us, then," he said with a shrug, "there's a stretch of highway up the coast, couple hairpin turns, you know the place?"

"We know the place," Brian said.

Jack swung up on the steel riser running along the Scout's passenger side. He folded his arms on the roll cage, looking down at Brian with amusement. "Then saddle up, boys."

-

Rio was fat and happy, stuffed full of the holiday. Even the cars on the busy thoroughfares seemed quieter somehow, this time of night. Jack stood in the footwell of the Scout and clung to the roll cage, letting the wet night air and the orange streetlights wash over him. Dom's silver Chevelle growled on their heels. Reflections of the city rolled over its hood. Fast cars were so ostentatious, so unnecessary, and so utterly human. Jack loved them.

"Castiel, why are we always so serious?" Jack shouted down.

"Because we live in Cardiff?" Castiel replied.

"We should relocate to Rio."

"There _is_ a small Rift in Mexico City."

"That's _days_ North of here!"

"I'm giving you a reason, Jack," Castiel retorted with a smile, "I didn't promise it would be a good one."

They reached the open highway at last, leaving the glow of Rio behind them. The Chevelle jumped ahead of them, whipping into the oncoming lane with the grace of a ballet dancer. Jack turned to watch as the wind tore away his laughter, and Castiel threw open the Scout's massive diesel motor.

It was, of course, no match. But that wasn't the point. The point lay up ahead, and a little orange import parked in a turnout and a pool of halogen light.

Jack knew the minute it had been spotted by the taillights coming on ahead of him. He grinned, snatching his breath in sips as the air rushed past him. It would have been easier to turn his head, to sit down behind the safety of the windshield.

But he wanted to _see_ this.

Dom's Chevelle flew into the turnout and skittered in a circle, throwing wheals of gravel. It stopped, feet from the lean figure propped trustingly against the import's fender.

Castiel pulled over, turned off the Scout, and stood up to settle into Jack's offered arm.

The figure stepped away from the car just as Dom and Brian piled out of the Chevelle. They converged on him, standing at arm's length, staring in disbelief.

"Hiya, fellas," said Han Lue, pushing back a curtain of dark hair, "How about that race?"

Castiel leaned a little harder into Jack's side as the scene dissolved into the most macho display of tears and hugging he'd ever seen.

"He's a demon, Jack," Castiel said, "shouldn't we tell them?"

Jack's hand dusted through Castiel's hair. "Don't you dare," he laughed.


End file.
